FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT TAHRIR SQUARE - PAGE 4

Reports about the demise of Hosni Mubarak might be flying thick and fast, but recent events prove his dictatorial spirit still lives on in Egypt. The military establishment, in the form of the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), is pushing Egypt into the old authoritarian era which might well lead to more volatility. Even as the second round of the presidential polls ended, the SCAF issued decrees that tightly limit presidential powers while seeking to enshrine a central role for the army in a future dispensation.

President Hosni Mubarak's aide once asked his boss, so goes an Egyptian joke, "Isn't it time you made a farewell speech to our people?" Mubarak looked at the aide, bewildered, and asked innocently: "Where are they going?". It almost sounded like Brezhnev-era Soviet humour. True, some dictators are not expected to go until their death, and even strategic follies can't force them to step aside. In Egypt, the fiery nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser had been humbled in the 1967 war with Israel and the charismatic peace-maker Anwar Sadat never got any Israeli guarantee for Palestinian statehood in return for the 1979 Camp David treaty.

CAIRO: Anti-government demonstrators defied a curfew to protest on Monday morning in Egypt's capital, demanding President Hosny Mubarak step down from office after three decades of rule. Leading opposition activist Mohammed ElBaradei had earlier Sunday promised tens of thousands of protesters that change would come to their country, as they staged a sixth day of demonstrations in Cairo and other cities. "What we have begun today cannot be turned back," the Nobel Peace Prize winner told the crowd in Cairo's central Tahrir Square through a megaphone on what he termed an "historic day".

The dominant picture of an emerging Egypt is green. The fear that Middle East's politically most vocal and significant country will be governed by mullahs is clouding most commentary on the transition. True, developments in Egypt over the past weeks have been muddled and at first sight the disarray is overwhelming. But that doesn't necessarily translate to the emergence of an Islamist nation. To understand the struggle between the newly elected lawmakers and the once all-powerful military establishment, it is important to appreciate what Egypt was before Tahrir Square protests and Hosni Mubarak's downfall.

WASHINGTON: There was no brutal crackdown by a tyrant, no runaway tanks that mowed down demonstrators, no trigger-happy police firing, and no self-immolation by any protestor. Even flash mobs require more organization and coordination, so innocuously did the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement begin. And unlike the civil rights and anti-war movements, it wasn't even all-American to start with. On July 13, 2011, the Canada-based Adbusters Foundation , best known for its ad-free, anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, put out a blog post proposing a peaceful occupation of Wall Street in Manhattan to protest corporate greed, growing wealth disparity, and the absence of legal action against banking mavens blamed for the global financial crisis.

CAIRO: Defying military orders to "go home", tens of thousands of protesters today laid a siege to Cairo's central square clamouring for immediate ouster of embattled President Hosni Mubarak , who ignored mounting global pressure to step down saying it will plunge Egypt into "chaos". Amid reports that the US is trying to broker a deal for a transitional government in Egypt headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman, massive crowds thronged the Tahrir Square, the hub of unrelenting 11-day protests that have claimed over 300 lives, for a "day of departure" rally against Mubarak, chanting slogans, bowing in prayer and waving national flags.

CAIRO: Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman will shortly make an important announcement amid raging anti-regime protests, state television said on Thursday. Meanwhile, Suleiman earlier said that neither President Hosni Mubarak nor his son Gamal, who was widely seen as a possible successor, would run in September presidential elections, according to reports. In another development, Egyptian police today arrested a French employee of human rights group Amnesty International and several other activists at a rights centre in Cairo, the London-based group said.

There is a story about a dissident who, railing against an authoritarian regime in a busy city square, is promptly arrested and put in jail for 14 years. On his release, he takes a bus, makes his way back to the precise spot of his arrest and, raising his voice, begins, "As I was saying the other day... " The tale is a bit apocryphal because, depending on who is narrating it, the setting shifts from parts of West Asia to Turkey. But it is probably not without some basis in authenticity.

Soon after the Tunisian people cast off dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and forced him to flee the country after decades in power, Egypt's foreign minister Ahmed Abul Gheit was asked what he thought of the chances of a mass uprising against the long-standing rule of President Hosni Mubarak. His answer was characteristic of all dictatorships that assume, over time, an aura of infallibility. "It's all nonsense," he said. Just days later, events in Egypt proved the fallacy of that supercilious remark.

DELHI The ticket collector at PVR Plaza, the well-known cinema theatre in central Delhi, was clueless why only 52 people turned up to see the blockbuster Dabangg 2 at noon on Saturday. "We've been running houseful shows all of last week and suddenly, the theatre has become deserted. " Following the announcement in TV channels of the death of the gang-rape victim, several people in the capital seem to have decided that Saturday was not going to be an average spend-time-with-the-family weekend.